In my opinion, everyone else was entirely too calm. Especially Wes, who, when he wasn’t asking if I was all right, was eating one of the many snack foods he kept disappearing to buy from the vending machine downstairs. Now, as he unwrapped a package of little chocolate doughnuts, offering me one, I shook my head.
“I don’t see how you can turn down a chocolate doughnut, ” he said, popping one into his mouth. From Delia’s doorway, I was sure I heard a groan or a moan, followed by Pete’s voice, soothing.
“I don’t see how you can eat,” I replied, as a nurse emerged from the room, her arms full of some sort of linens, and started down the hallway toward the desk.
He chewed for a second, then swallowed. “This could go on for ages,” he said, as Bert, who was sitting on his other side, jerked awake from the nap he’d been taking for the last half hour, blinking. “You have to keep your strength up.”
“What time is it?” Bert asked sleepily, rubbing his eyes.
Wes handed him a doughnut. “Almost seven,” he said.
I felt my stomach do a flip-flop, although I wasn’t sure it was from hearing that I was now officially an hour late to meet my mother, or from the shriek that came from Delia’s room, this one loud and extended enough that we all looked at the slightly open door until it abruptly stopped. In the quiet that followed, I pushed myself to my feet.
“Macy?” Wes said.
“I’m fine,” I said, knowing that was his next question. “I’m just going to call my mom.”
I’d left my cell phone in the van, so I walked to the line of pay phones, digging some change out of my pocket. The first time, the line was busy and I hung up and tried again. Still busy. I pushed open a door that led outside to a small patio, where I sat for a few minutes, looking at the sky, which was slowly growing darker. It was perfect fireworks weather. Then I went back inside and called again, getting the solid busy beep once more. This time, I held on for her voicemail, then cleared my throat and tried to explain.
“It’s me,” I said, “I know you’re probably worried, and I’m really sorry. I was on my way to meet you but Delia went into labor so now I’m at the hospital. I have to wait until someone can drive me, but I’ll get there as soon as I can. I’m sorry, again. I’ll see you soon.”
There, I thought as I hung up the phone. Done. I knew it wouldn’t solve everything, or even anything. But I’d deal with that when the time came.
When I came back to the bench where Wes and Bert and I had been sitting, it was empty. In fact, there was nobody in the hallway at all, or at the nurses’ station, and for a second I just stood there, feeling totally creeped out. Then Wes stuck his head out of Delia’s room. He was grinning.
“Hey,” he said. “Come see.”
He held the door for me as I stepped inside. Delia was sitting up in the bed, the sheets gathered around her midsection. Her face was flushed, and in her arms was this tiny little thing with dark hair. Pete was sitting on her right, his arm over her shoulders, and they were both looking down at the baby. The room was so quiet, but in a good way. By the window, even Bert, pessimist of pessimists, was smiling.
Then Delia looked up and saw me. “Hey,” she said softly, waving me over. “Come say hello.” As I came around the bed, she shifted her arms, so the baby was closer to me. “Look. Isn’t she beautiful?”
Up close, the baby looked even smaller: her eyes were closed, and she was making these little snuffly noises, like she was dreaming about something amazing. “She’s perfect,” I said, and for once, it was the exact right word to use.
Delia trailed her finger over the baby’s cheek. “We’re calling her Avery,” she said. “It’s Pete’s mom’s name. Avery Melissa.”
“I like it,” I said.
I stared down at the baby’s face, her little nose, the tiny nails on her tiny fingers, and suddenly it all came back to me: getting here, the walk across the lobby, how scared I’d been remembering everything about being with my dad. I could feel it rushing over me and I wanted to block it out, but I steeled myself, tightening my fingers into my palms. Avery’s eyes were open now, and they were dark and clear. As she looked at me, I wondered what it was like for the world to be so new, everything a first. Today I hadn’t had that luxury: each thing that happened since the moment we pulled up was an echo of something else.
Now I watched Delia study her daughter, smiling and slightly teary, and I had a flash of my own mother, all those months ago, walking out of the waiting room downstairs toward me. More than anything I’d wanted to see something in her expression that gave me hope, but there was nothing. Just the same overwhelming sadness and shock, reflected back at me. That had been when this all began, the shift between us, everything changing.
I felt something ache in my chest, and suddenly I knew I was going to cry. For me, for my mother. For what we’d had taken from us, but also for what we’d given up willingly. So much of a life. And so much of each other.
I swallowed, hard, then backed away from the bed. “I, um,” I said, and I could feel Wes watching me, “I need to go try my mom again.”
“Tell her I couldn’t have done it without you,” Delia said. “You were a real pro.”
I nodded, barely hearing this, as Delia bent her head back over the baby, smoothing the blanket around her head.
“Macy,” Wes said as I moved past him, out into the hallway.
“It’s just,” I said, swallowing again. “I . . . need to talk to my mom. I mean, she’s worried probably, and she’s wondering where I am.”